About 72% of Irish Firms Prefer IT Outsourcing – ICS


According to a study by the Irish Computer Society (ICS), the national body for ICT professionals in Ireland, about 72 percent of the Irish organizations outsource their IT operations, while the remaining 28 percent do not outsource their IT functions due to factors such as uncertainty regarding providers’ ability to supply the required level of service, apprehension about the realization of outsourcing benefits and goals, and concerns over the management of the outsourcing providers.

In addition, hardware maintenance, application development, application support, website development, and consultancy were cited as the most frequently outsourced IT functions. In terms of sectors, public sector organizations prefer to outsource application development and hire consultants, while private sector organizations outsource hardware maintenance.

The study estimated that although the smaller organizations do not have appropriate IT infrastructure and human resources, they outsource less as compared to large organizations. Only 4 percent of the organizations outsource the entire IT functions to external vendors.
The study revealed that the IT outsourcing among the various Irish firms was driven by the provision of additional IT services and not cost reduction.